Acts 8:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This danger came from the former magician Simon. He saw how the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands. In the apostolic Church, the reception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit was very often expressed in various extraordinary signs. This may be seen, for example, in the conversion of Cornelius's household (chapter 10), in the apostle Paul's planting of Christianity in Ephesus (chapter 19), and in the abundance of spiritual gifts in the Corinthian Church (1 Cor 12-14).

It may therefore be thought that in Samaria also the apostles' bringing down of the Holy Spirit upon the newly baptized was accompanied by some extraordinary manifestations of life filled with grace.

In answer to this criminal simony, as all attempts to obtain the grace of the priesthood by purchase came to be called, the apostle Peter addressed Simon with a stern rebuke. It affected the magician so deeply that he began asking the apostles to pray for him.

His reception of the Holy Spirit would have made such an act impossible for him. The narrative itself presents the matter as though he had only seen that, through the laying on of the apostles' hands, the Holy Spirit descended.

He himself had not yet received Him.

Probably the laying on of hands upon each person for the descent of the Holy Spirit required no little time and was performed in a definite order, by turns.

Simon saw the action of the Holy Spirit upon others. Then, without waiting his turn and before being counted worthy of the laying on of hands himself, he offered money to the apostles with his request.

It is noteworthy that he asks not only to receive the Spirit himself. He asks to have the authority to bring Him down upon others through the laying on of hands.

Perhaps he made this a condition of his consent to the first.

In this act and request, the true character of the magician treacherously revealed itself. So did the true character of his faith in Philip's preaching and of his amazement at Philip's miracles.

Obviously, with complete egoism, he regarded the most spiritual and most holy thing only as a means of perfecting, so to speak, and elevating his magical trade.

He wished to attain still greater honor than he had enjoyed from the people. He considered it entirely possible to acquire this by means of money.

Thus he viewed the actions of the Spirit, whose inward perception he had not been counted worthy to receive, only from the external standpoint of striking phenomena.

He viewed the apostles as bearers and possessors of another and higher magical power, unknown to him, whose possession he, as a goetes, desired for himself.

Thus his faith was impure, his amazement impure, his desire impure, and his means impure.

"He believed not for the sake of faith, but so that he too might work miracles. How did he think to work miracles? He himself deceived, and also subdued the possessed.

"Therefore he thought that the apostles, like himself, used some sort of art. For this reason he gave money. Again, for the same reason, in order not to lose this gift, he remained constantly with Philip" (Theophylact).

Moreover, in offering money to the apostles, he revealed himself as a man who in his former activity had himself been guided by similar motives and interests, wholly impure.

This case vividly transports us into the milieu of such people at that time. They appeared in great numbers and drew away the superstitious masses by charlatan means purchased with money from similar charlatans.

How pure and holy, in contrast with this, were the manner of action, aims, and aspirations of the preachers of Christianity.

"The sickness had been in Simon for a long time. Therefore he was not freed from it even at baptism. How then did they baptize him? In the same way that Christ chose Judas" (Chrysostom).

Simon, not waiting for his turn and seeing the evident transformation of the believers, brought money to the apostles. He asked that they give him also the gift of imparting the Holy Spirit to others. It is evident that he understood the gifts of the Holy Spirit as new mystical actions, previously unknown to him. They seemed like the secrets he had perhaps more than once bought with money, like all such craftsmen in the arts of sorcery and magic.

Together with his failure to understand the essence of Christianity in general, and its mystical actions in particular, Simon nevertheless made it clear that the Christian mystical laying on of hands was worth money. It had not been easy for him to accept baptism as an expression of submitting himself, together with his imaginary great power. Now he was ready to submit to the apostles and even pay money, if only he might become their equal.

It is clear that he esteemed them very highly and valued himself lowly, that is, according to his truly purchasable worth. But the apostles showed themselves still higher than Simon had judged them.

Thus the wisdom of sorcery, which had so recently ruled over the Samaritans, was humbled, put to shame, and overthrown by itself in the person of its most famous representative, Simon Magus. He left to the Church the name of the dreadful sin of simony. It is close to Judas's betrayal of Christ and consists in buying the priesthood with money.